Turisas at The Key Club on 2/22!

Man, oh man, what a show! Turisas put on an incredible performance last Friday night at The Key Club! Any fan of power metal or Finnish folk metal should check out this band. They take the best elements of viking, folk, power and symphonic metal, and blend them together into the stunning amalgamation they call "battle metal".  And from what I can tell, their epic movie soundtrack feel is created live by keyboards and a violin, not from a cheater backing track. These guys had tremendous energy and really know how to get a crowd excited! There were tons of dudes in the pit sporting the red Turisas warrior facepaint.

Olli Vanska shreds the hell out of his violin!

I'll have to make it out to Helsinki, Finland one day because there are just too many good bands over there! Be sure to check out Turisas on Facebook and watch out for their next US tour!

The next event on my concert calendar is Scattered Hamlet at The Viper Room on Monday, March 4th. I might also make it over to The House Blues to catch The Future Villains right before Scattered Hamlet plays.

Nekrogoblikon at The Whiskey on 1/18

Riding on the heels of my post about Klingon metal, I bring you another delightfully bizarre and original metal sub-genre: goblin metal! Seriously, I cannot make this stuff up.

Nekrogoblikon is a local metal band who writes songs mostly about goblins - except for that one song about bears. They've got kind of a Euro-thrash vibe with impressive twin guitar leads and bitchin' fast keyboard solos. There are also some campy electronic disco beats thrown in occasionally but it kind of makes sense, especially if you've seen the music video for No One Survives. I'd venture to say that fans of Children of Bodom and Powerglove would dig them equally.

Anyway, they put on a totally incredible show and since they were the headliners they actually got to play a long set. I especially enjoyed "Return to the Sky", the song about birds plucking out everyone's eyes and reducing humanity to bird droppings. I'm choosing to believe it was somewhat Hobbit-inspired.

The only photo I got right before my phone battery died.

Make sure you stalk Nekrogoblikon on Facebook or Reverb Nation to find out about their next shows and stream their music for FREE.

The next event on my concert calendar is Scrap Metal at The Key Club on 1/26.

Inquisition, Melechesh, and others at The Key Club on 10/28 - The Hater Recap

The past seven days have been nothing but non-stop concerts for me and there is more on the horizon! I visited The Key Club Sunday night to see Septic Flesh and various other acts I anticipated as being boring and uninteresting (the lineup was mostly black metal - not my thing). I hate to be a negative Nancy but this night had more downs than ups. 

The Key Club is fast becoming my least favorite venue. They opened the doors an hour and a half late, the bar was cash only, they were out of sweet potato fries and Jack Daniels, and security moved the line so slowly I thought I might lose my shit and kill someone. Seriously, the last thing I want to do is discourage people from going out to see metal shows but The Key Club SUCKS so prepare accordingly. Oh, and one of my buddies who played there recently said they treated his band like shit backstage. Well, enough ranting about that.

The opening act was surprisingly really good! I don't like much black metal but Inquisition pulled me in with a stunning performance, especially considering that there were only two guys in the band. Front man Dagon's guitar and vocal styles were similar to Abbath's (of Immortal). He made a thunderously impressive amount of noise for one person and got most of the cranky, defeated crowd to forget the one and a half hour line saga they had just endured. He also had the epic power stance! The drummer also had serious chops and laid down some wickedly fast double bass. Major props to these dudes.

I also really enjoyed Melechesh, a Mesopotamian metal band that played after Ex Deo. These guys were a crunchy, energetic blend of thrash and black metal with a middle eastern sound. They had a local guy named Caleb filling in on rhythm guitars but I think everyone else was from overseas. It was a multicultural kind of night.

The rest of the night was sadly a bit of a let down. There was entirely too much backing track being relied upon by the other bands and not nearly enough soloing or creative guitar playing. You can't win 'em all. But really, most of the concerts I attend are consistently awesome.